"There is only one power that determines the course of history . . . the power of ideas." — Ayn Rand

Friday, January 3, 2014

Forget Chinese and Indian "Pollution". Let's Go Full Speed Ahead on America's Industrialization

In America's Dirty History, the New Jersey Star-Ledger declared that, because China and India are enmeshed in the early, polluting stage of industrial development and are "unaware or unconcerned about the [environmental] harm they’re doing," the United States should "lead on this issue" by reigning in our own carbon pollution. Carbon dioxide emissions, you see, are doing the real harm, and America is the main culprit in the resultant disastrous climate change, the editors claim. Why?

It’s our carbon dioxide, not theirs, that’s doing the most damage. The United States is responsible for 29 percent of the planet’s carbon emissions since the mid-1800s — more than three times China’s output over the same period, according to the World Resources Institute.

Get that? Never mind that America produced the highest standard of living the world had ever seen. Never mind that the U.S. has been and is the world's leading economic engine. Americans must apologize for her success, reign in her industrial might with ever-more controls, and shackle her standard of living.

Several commentators blasted the Star-Ledger. One said, "WHAT??!??! How dumb can the eco-nazis be on this? China and India don't care about their air quality, so we have to suffer for it. The reason behind that is to set an example?"

Another chimed in:

So the recommended course of action is to continue to give China and India a free pass to pollute as much as they like by manufacturing cheaply with no OSHA, EPA etc., while simultaneously making it even MORE prohibitively expensive to operate the cleanest, most environmentally safe factories here in the USA and Europe? Sounds like a recipe for the unilateral dismantlement of our manufacturing base.

I left this rather lengthy counter-editorial:We should not ignore the fact that human life in pre-industrial ages was short, brutal, and filthy. Free-flowing animal and human waste and garbage disposal caused plagues and rat infestations. Kitchens were separate from the main house because they were so dirty. There were no bathrooms, only outhouses. Heat and the limited illumination that was available came from open fires.Then came industrialization, and a steady progress toward an ever cleaner, healthier, and improving environment such that man never before saw. Yes, early stages of industrialization was dirty, but compared to what existed before it, life was better, just like in China and India today. The typical pattern is that as life and prosperity improves under industrialization, the cleanup progress can begin. Today America and other advanced Western nations are cleaner than ever.Environmentalists know this, which is why they latched on to the idea that the life-giving trace gas CO2—about 4/100ths of a % of the atmosphere, the equivalent of 3/8ths inch on a football field, most of which predates the industrial revolution—is a "pollutant." All animal life produces CO2 to survive, and man is no exception. But, when the Bush Administration declared CO2 a pollutant, it handed environmental statists a potent tool of economic control.Virtually everything man does produces CO2, starting with every breath he exhales, which produces 100 times as much CO2 than he breaths in. If CO2 is a pollutant that must be controlled, then so is human life. And that's the point. Never mind the "climate change denier" straw man. Nobody denies climate change, which is an everlasting natural process. And never mind that human industrialization likely contributes to it. Human beings are part of nature, too, so whatever the cause, the rise in CO2 is fundamentally natural. Industrialization and fossil fuels that drive it is a boon to the environment, from the premise that an environment supportive of human life and flourishing is a value. If climate change, whether natural or man-made or some combination, has some negative side affects, industrialization is our best means of adapting to it.Rather than cripple our CO2-driven industrial economy and standard of living and the productive industries and businesses that drive it with more and more environmental controls in the name of "nudging" China and India toward "change," we should celebrate and promote our own industrial might as the clean, life-giving value that it is, enjoy the warmer weather, and sell the Chinese and Indians the pollution control technology they'll need and clamor for as they continue to industrialize and prosper.And, finally, we should de-fang the environmental movement by removing the ridiculous designation of CO2 as a "pollutant."Related Reading:We Are Doomed Without, not Because of, Fossil Fuel UseAttack on "Carbon Pollution" an Attack on Human Life

1 comment:

Mike Kevitt
said...

On their own terms, environmentalists can only count the CO2 added by industrialization as a 'pollutant'.

All increases in CO2 are natural, but they don't like the part caused by industry, because that's artificial nature, since it's caused by industry. They want nature unaffected by industry. So, shut down industry.

Establishing a human environment (artificial nature) theoretically, though unlikely, means the total transformation of all nature the world over into artificial nature, with no more wild anything, including no more wild weather. It theoretically means everything is man-made, with everything domesticated, tame, under our easy control. All we would have to do is teach each generation to appreciate it and to keep it that way.

This assumes nothing happens from outside, like a meteor shower, which might tend to muck things up. But, even with everything artificial, it's all still natural, and everybody would still be free to do new things.

But there will always be the unknown preventing any state of total artificialness.

In any event, environmentalists want to deprive us of all artificial nature, leaving us with no man-made, human environment, in order to eliminate 'pollution'.

About Me

Greetings and welcome to my blog. My name is Michael A. (Mike) LaFerrara. I sometimes use the pen or "screen" name "Mike Zemack" or "Zemack" in online activism, such as posted comments on articles. “Zemack” stands for the first letters of the names of my six grandchildren. I was born in 1949 in New Jersey, U.S.A., where I retired from a career in the plumbing, building controls, and construction industries, and still reside with my wife of 45 years. The purpose of my blog is the discussion of a wide range of topics relating to human events from the perspective of Objectivism, the philosophy of reason, rational self-interest, and Americanism originated by Ayn Rand.

As Rand observed: “The professional intellectual is the field agent of the army whose commander-in-chief is the philosopher.” I am certainly not the philosopher. But neither am I a field agent, or general. I am a foot soldier in that Objectivist army that fights for an individualist society in which every person can live in dignified sovereignty, by his own reasoned judgment, for his own sake, in that state of peaceful coexistence with his fellow man that only capitalist political and economic freedom can provide. While I am a fully committed Objectivist, my opinions are based on my own understanding of Objectivism, and should not be taken as definitive “Objectivist positions.” For the full story of my journey toward Objectivism, see my Introduction.

One final introductory note: I strongly recommend Philosophy, Who Needs it, which highlights the inescapable importance of philosophy in every individual's life. I can be reached at mal.atlas@comcast.net. Thanks, Mike LaFerrara.

Recommended Essays/Videos

Quotes I Like

Let me give you a tip on a clue to men’s characters: the man who damns money has obtained it dishonorably; the man who respects it has earned it. Run for your life from any man who tells you that money is evil. That sentence is the leper’s bell of an approaching looter.—Francisco d'Anconia

I love getting older...I get to grow up and learn things. Madalyn, 5 years old, Montesorri student, and my grand-daughter

The best thing one can do for the poor is to not become one of them. Author Unknown

Nature, to be commanded, must be obeyed. Francis Bacon

Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. Ronald Reagan

Thinking is hard work. If it weren't, more people would do it. Henry Ford

Intellectual freedom cannot exist without political freedom; political freedom cannot exist without economic freedom; a free mind and a free market are corollaries. Ayn Rand